I strongly disagree with SCO's attack on the Open Source community.
While I still work with SCO products, I now strongly encourage my clients to
adopt Open Source alternatives. My conscience will not allow me to sell
products from a company who would then use the profits to attack the Open
Source world.
I first started doing work with
Santa Cruz Operation (SCO)
UNIX for Intel product - SCO Unix R2
in the mid 1980's, providing installation support, troubleshooting
and upgrades. I have continued to work with OpenServer
in it's various releases ever since. My experience with OpenServer is quite
broad from bare metal installs to recoveries after catastrophic failures. I
still have a large client base of OpenServer users who find it a reliabile,
effective platform for running their UNIX based applications.
SCO OpenServer Experience |
I have supported the use of SCO OpenServer in production environments since
1988. In that time, I have worked on systems as small as one user and as
large as 100+ users. My experience with OpenServer includes:
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Recommending Suitable Platforms. Not all PC hardware is suitable for, or
compatible with OpenServer 5. Many PC components (and servers) are not
suitable for use as an OpenServer platform due to hardware compatibility
issues. Additionally, selecting the correct hardware can have a significant
impact on reliability, performance, capacity and upgradability - not to
mention price. Also, SCO's own Hardware Compatible List often contains
undocumented issues that limit suitability.
I can provide specific recommendations on the best hardware
to meet your OpenServer deployment requirements.
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Performing Bare-Metal Recoveries. I have recovered many SCO servers,
some considered a lost cause by the application vendor or even SCO.
I have managed recoveries even when back up
tapes were unavailable or unreliable. In one case, an associate and I
were able to restore
data off of a disk damaged by a lightning strike when no back up was
available.
Please call me if your system has crashed for any reason. I may just be
able to help you get your system back.
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SCO Upgrades. SCO has eliminated support for older releases of
OpenServer. This may leave your machine vulnerable to security,
compatibility or functionality issues.
I completed dozens of Y2K SCO upgrades, often having the machine back in
service in as little as 4 hours.
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Security Audits. Most of the SCO machines I encounter have security
issues that could easily be exploited. In many cases these flaws can be
easily corrected. I can help secure your system and also develop the
policies and procedures that will ensure your machine stays secure.
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Back Ups.
Most of the machines I encounter do not perform complete, trustworthy back
ups. This places the machine (and the company that owns it) at
significant risk.
To assess your current back up strategy, ask yourself these questions:
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Can you perform a bare metal recovery with 100% confidence?
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Can you recover any file from your back up media at any time?
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Can you reproduce your machines current configuration with
the documentation you have on hand right now?
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How old are your tapes? Have they exceeded their rated life?
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Are your back ups verified after they are performed?
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Are databases or other applications put into a back-up safe state? If not,
your database may be worse than useless.
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Performance. When your server is slow, everybody is effected.
Stop appologizing to your clients about your your slow server. Often simple
upgrades can add years of life to a server (and prevent costly upgrades).
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Database Administration. We have experience with both the Progress
and Oracle databases. I often see systems where the application
vendor has not done a good job of installing a database product or has not
properly configured SCO to provide the resources the database needs to
function properly.
If your staff are getting errors like semaphore error or out of
shared memory, SCO isn't configured properly.
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Upgrades. Call me when it's time to upgrade your SCO server.
I've done countless hardware and operating system upgrades on SCO systems.
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Retirement. I'll help you retire your SCO server.
We have helped many clients migrate from SCO to Linux. Linux
offers many advantages over SCO including reduced price, better hardware
compatibility, performance, etc. We can help you migrate to SCO Linux or
to the platform recommended by your application vendor.
Migration need not be difficult or costly. To minimize risk
you want to ensure it is done properly.
SCO Certifications & Authorizations |
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I tested out on my SCO ACE designation at a local ProMetric center. It
involved two tests that were quite picky (and more challenging than I
expected). However, for the depth and breadth of coverage, I would have to
say that the SCO ACE tests were some of the most challenging tests I've
taken. To complete an ACE designation, you must pass both an
System Administration test and a Network Administration test.
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Earning a Master ACE designation involved taking a third SCO test
on Shell Script Programming. Shell scripting is a critical
skill for system administrators and SCO is correct to ensure that their top
certified people have this skill.
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We earned formal SCO reseller status in 1997 after informally selling and
supporting SCO products for years. Management changes at SCO forced us to
become legit! Our SCO Reseller Authorization Number is 30044282.
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Our first SCO authorization was for their entire OpenServer product line.
At the time, SCO OpenServer reseller authorization was only granted to
companies who had an SCO Advanced Certified Engineer on staff. Today, anyone
can resell OpenServer. However, few companies do a good job of installation
or support.
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